


not a jacker in sight

by cmc



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Fluff, Resolved Sexual Tension, i guess?, oh my god what am I even doing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 19:20:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6484345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmc/pseuds/cmc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karen investigates a possible new player in the drug trade, Frank dresses like a cowboy, and, against all odds, they have a good day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not a jacker in sight

**Author's Note:**

> This is the result of me watching Sicario. I watched Jon Bernthal's, like, two scenes in that movie about fifty times, because goddamn. I would also like to dedicate this to my arch-nemesis, Rosalind, who I will hate for the rest of my days for dragging me back into hell.
> 
> Title is from It Was a Good Day by Ice Cube, which Frank also quotes near the end. Because I love Ice Cube.

It’s not like Karen had a bad boy _thing_.

Okay, so, there was that one kid in high school who organized a senior prank that involved covering the hallways and the entire gym floor in syrup and Karen made out with him once after detention (Karen had gotten detention for arguing with her English teacher for an entire class period about the injustice of reading so much Fitzgerald and Hemingway and so little Virginia Woolf). And there had been Matt, whatever that brief thing between them had been, which was totally unfair because Matt was supposed to be _nice_ and _a lawyer_ but instead he was _Daredevil_ and _an asshole_. And there was that one guy she went for drinks with before she got framed for his murder. And now there was Frank.

But she did not have a bad boy thing. Karen had a thing for trouble in general. Bad boys had a thing for _her_.

It had been a year since Nelson and Murdock represented Frank in court. A year of working at the Bulletin in Ben’s office. A year since Matt told her that he ran around at night in a red jumpsuit punching people in the head enough to give them brain damage but not killing anyone because “that would be _wrong_ , Karen.” And it had been eight months since she had accidentally run into Frank while she was investigating a stockbroker in the Upper East Side (who Frank wanted to kill) and then played three rounds of rock-paper-scissors to figure out who got dibs (Karen won, she wrote an article about his ties to human trafficking, and if he ended up with a bullet in his head three days after it was published, well, Karen wasn’t exactly heartbroken).

After the initial shock of seeing him had worn off and Frank graciously agreed to allow Karen to expose the stockbroker in the paper before he shot the guy in the head, Karen invited him to coffee. They went back to her apartment instead of going to a diner (it was midnight, Karen was broke, Frank was a wanted mass murderer with a spray-painted skull on his shirt) and Karen poured Frank’s coffee in a mug shaped like a cat just to see him grin. He complimented her on her good job plastering over all the bullet holes in the walls and she complimented his face for not having any bruises.

He looked better. As better as you could expect a wanted criminal who had seen his wife and children brutally murdered in front of him to look. He looked like he was eating more frequently and maybe not getting the shit beat out of him every other minute. He had gotten his dog back from the Irish and had read every single one of Karen’s articles. He still wasn’t over the death of his family, obviously, but the whole murdering criminals thing was helping him deal with it.

Karen eventually fell asleep on the couch listening to the low rumble of his voice, and when she woke up the next morning the kitty mug was washed and drying on the counter. Next to it was a sticky note with a phone number written on it. Ellison asked her why she was smiling so much that day and she told him she had dropped her bagel on the ground that morning and they had given it to her for free.

Karen and Frank continued investigating the scumbags who were ruining the city together. Sometimes he would kill the person before Karen could get anything concrete for an article, which made Karen mad, and sometimes Karen’s articles would get the person thrown in jail before Frank could crazy murder them, which made Frank mad. They drank coffee at night in Karen’s apartment. Frank continued to call her ma’am. Karen took his dog to the vet for a checkup, because Frank couldn’t “just _go_ to the _vet_ , I’m wanted for several gruesome homicides.” Sometimes they didn’t see each other for weeks, sometimes they saw each other every day. They were friends.

And one day after Jessica Jones barged in Karen’s office and slapped a manila folder on her desk, Karen knew Frank would want to kill her. He wouldn’t, because Frank would never hurt a hair on Karen’s head, but he’d definitely want to. Maybe instead of murdering her he’d exploit her traumatizing fear of bees in order to exact revenge, which would probably be worse. Karen regretted telling him that.

“Barbie, I’ve been tailing this fuckwad for you all week and let me tell you, the sooner you pay me and I don’t have to look at his redneck face anymore, the nicer I’ll be,” Jessica said, settling back in the chair across her desk. She kicked her feet up and knocked over Karen’s rubber band ball to make room for her boots on the desk.

Karen picked a rubber band off of the ball and flicked it at Jessica, who caught it in the air. “Just tell me what you’ve got, Jessica, and I’ve got a check and a bottle of whiskey with your name on it,” Karen said, taking the whiskey out of her drawer and putting it on the desk between them.

Jessica pointed at her. “And that’s why you’re my favorite,” she said. She sat up and snatched the folder back from Karen, taking out a few pictures and turning them around for Karen to see. “Alright, J.R. Ewing over here has been going to this bar on 51st every night this week. If I had to take a wild guess, he’ll be going there tonight. I think this is going to be your best bet to try and talk to him. It’s a total southern redneck kind of vibe, they have one of those mechanical bulls and everything. It was awful and if I ever have to go back there I will burn the whole place down.”

Karen raised an eyebrow. “It can’t be that bad.”

“I’m gonna write down that you said that, and tomorrow after you’ve gone to this place and realized how awful it is, I’m going to remind you what you said and I will laugh,” Jessica said, snagging the bottle of whiskey off the table. “The rest of it is in the file, his address, financial records, all that crap. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but let me know if you have questions.”

“Thanks, Jess.” Karen handed over the envelope with the check as Jessica stood up, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll be in touch soon, I’m sure.”

“Always up for taking down gross rich men,” Jessica said as she moved towards the door. “Remember, tomorrow, I’m going to laugh at you.”

“I’m not afraid of a little southern culture,” Karen sniffed, and Jessica huffed a laugh before closing the door behind her.

Karen looked down at the photos and documents in the file, spreading them all out on her desk. She was investigating the son of a major oil tycoon, who had moved to New York a few years ago on his father’s dime. Karen suspected he was spending all his father’s money on making a name for himself in the drug trade. His father was getting up there and apparently very ill, and Karen was worried that as soon as he finally died the son would get more heavily involved in criminal activities. Karen had hired Jessica, who she had been introduced to by Foggy a few months back and had been frequently employing her since then, to follow the guy around this week and see if there would be any possible openings to speak with him. Apparently, this redneck bar was going to be her best bet. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to a skeezy bar alone.

Karen sighed as she pulled up a new window on her computer and searched “ _how to tell what size pants a guy wears just by looking at him_.”

 

 

Later that night, Karen texted Frank to “ _get to my apartment asap, it’s an emergency.”_ Which was probably a dick move, but a few months ago Frank had told her that he needed to lay low at her place for a few days when he really just wanted to watch a _Kitchen Nightmares_ marathon, so whatever. Once Frank got to Karen’s apartment and saw her sitting on her couch with her head still attached and all her organs on the inside and his heart stopped threatening to fall out of his ass, he stared at her as if she just told him she was going to marry Thor and become the Viking queen of outer space.

“I thought you were in danger,” Frank said slowly, looking around the apartment.

“I am in danger,” Karen replied. “I am _dangerously_ close to being able to write a kickass exposé about an up and coming drug lord.”

“I was over in Wall Street,” Frank said. “I ran the whole way. It took me an hour to get here!”

“I need you, Frank,” Karen said, turning her puppy eyes up to eleven. Frank just narrowed his eyes and glared harder. She sighed. “You remember what I told you about Stephen Hunter?”

“The son of that oil tycoon?” he asked, sitting down next to her on the couch with a grunt.

“That’s the one,” she said. She tossed a few of Jessica’s pictures into his lap. “Jessica has been tailing him for me, and I’m gonna go bump into him tonight and nicely ask him a few questions. Which I’m assuming will end in him nicely throwing a drink in my face.”

“And you need me because…?”

Karen grinned. “That’s the fun part,” she said. She reached under the coffee table, picked up the shirt and jeans she bought earlier and threw them at his head. “It’s a sketchy bar, it’s Friday night, I’m a woman. I’m really not looking to get hit on and/or assaulted tonight.”

“So I’m the muscle,” he said, holding up the shirt for examination.

“Knew you’d catch on.”

He paused, still looking at the shirt. “Question,” he intoned.

“Answer.”

“Why do I have to wear _this?_ ”

He held up the shirt and the jeans, glaring at her behind them. It was a grey flannel with shiny snap buttons, and the jeans were wranglers.

“Ah,” Karen started. “Well, it’s a southern kind of bar. With a mechanical bull and cowboys. So we have to blend in.”

“How come you don’t have to look like an idiot?” Frank asked, eyeing her simple dress.

Karen stared at him. “It’s a flannel and jeans, Frank.”

“Exactly,” he said, scrunching up his nose as he looked down at his current attire. Frank was a tortured, tormented soul, and he liked his clothes to reflect that, which is why he spray-painted skulls on all of his black T-shirts.

“You can survive one night of not dressing like a homicidal weirdo, stop being so dramatic,” Karen rolled her eyes as she stood up and grabbed her purse. “Now come on, the Uber is gonna be here soon.”

Frank groaned and stripped off his shirt, tossing it aside as he started buttoning up the flannel. “I can’t believe I put up with you, ma’am,” he said. After he put the jeans on (Karen snuck a peek at his bare thighs, which, _nice_ ) and he looked a little less like a psychologically scarred ex-Marine and a little more like an Average Joe spending a Friday night out, he and Karen walked down the stairs and stood outside her building.

“Alright, here’s what Jessica told me,” she said as they waited for the car to pull up. “Hunter has been spending every night this week in this bar, and he frequently goes into the bathroom with different, sketchy looking guys. I’m assuming this is where he’s making his deals and conducting his business. If he goes to the bathroom, I’m gonna need you to follow him in there and tell me what he’s doing. Jessica said she normally wouldn’t have a problem following him into the men’s room, but it’s a fairly crowded place, so she didn’t want to make a scene. That’s your only job tonight, and to make sure I don’t get hit on. Other than that, I’m just gonna try to look for an opening to talk to him.”

“Right,” Frank said. A gust of wind blew Karen’s hair in disarray, and she tucked it behind her ears before buttoning up her jacket. Frank stuck his hands in his pockets, looking at her. “And what are you going to ask him?”

“Well, I’m gonna read the room first. It could be, ‘hello, random stranger, what do you do for a living?’ or the ever-reliable, ‘hey, jackass, are you running a drug ring?’” she said, grinning over at Frank.

Frank chuckled, shaking his head. “You sure I can’t just kill this guy?”

“I don’t even know if he’s doing what I think he is,” Karen said.

“Well, what’s your evidence so far?”

“I have this contact, she used to be a mule for the Cartel before she got out after you hung them on a bunch of meat hooks,” she said. Frank smirked. “She said that there’s been a new player trying to snatch up some of the Cartel’s former territory, but all she knew about him was that his name was Hunter, he was relatively new in town, and he had old money. I spent a few weeks keeping my ears open for any talk of young billionaires, and I saw him listed on one of those bullshit ‘Ten Most Eligible Bachelors in Manhattan’ lists. I did a little digging, and I haven’t found much, but I think he’s our guy. In some of the stuff Jessica found for me, there’s evidence that he’s been spending major cash at a restaurant in Greenwich, even though it’s a fairly low priced restaurant. So that could be a front for something. And there’s the place we’re going to tonight, which might be a drop bar, if he goes there that often, or just somewhere where he meets suppliers.”

Frank looked thoughtful as she finished. She was relatively new at the whole investigating thing, but she had gotten rather good at it even when she was still at Nelson and Murdock. Whenever she pulled on a string that led to another string, that usually meant she was getting somewhere closer to the truth. That’s how it felt this time, so she was following her instinct with this guy.

“Hm,” Frank said. “Well, you’re the one investigating. You’re the boss, I’ll follow your lead.”

The car finally pulled up and they slid in the back seat. Karen rattled off the address and leaned back, her leg brushing against Frank’s.

Doing this kind of shit – investigating, asking questions, annoying people until she got answers – was so different when she did it with Frank than when she did it at Nelson and Murdock. Both Foggy and Matt – Matt especially – had always been so quick so tell her to slow down, be careful, don’t mess with the wrong people. Don’t pick a fight you can’t win. And she understood why they told her that, really, she did, but Frank just… got it. Frank understood her need for the truth, her desire to uncover all this secretive bullshit and expose it for the world to see. At its core, Karen’s need for truth was rooted in her desire to understand why the world she lived in was the way it was. There were so many things fucked up about her life and she just wanted to know why and how things happened the way they did – why her brother had to die, why she had been framed for murder, why she _actually_ had to murder Wesley, why she had been shot at so many times that she couldn’t keep track any more of who was shooting at her for what reason. Frank understood without her ever having to explain it to him, even though she had, many times, late at night and early in the morning. He just got it, because they were the same, even though Frank preferred shooting people between the eyes and Karen’s methods were decidedly less violent but no less ruthless. But they were the same.

 _“You never lie to me_ ,” Karen had said.

She shuffled a little closer to him in her seat, and though he was looking out the window, she thought she could see a grin on his face.

  

 

Jessica was right. The bar was awful.

Women were wearing cutoffs and men were wearing cowboy hats, there seemed to be an endless loop of Skynyrd playing over the speakers, and the line to ride the mechanical bull was ridiculously long. Frank hadn’t stopped glaring at her since they stepped inside, but he seemed a little less grumpy with one beer in him and his second on the way.

“Have I told you how much I hate you?” he grumbled into her ear.

“What did I tell you about being dramatic?” she replied, continuing to stare at Hunter, who was sitting with a group of guys across the room. She had spotted him immediately and they chose a table so they could keep watch of him in case he got up to go to the bathroom. So far, he had only gotten up to get more beers, and he always had a friend go up to the bar with him, so she couldn’t corner him.

Bringing Frank was a good idea – a few guys had been eyeing her since she came in, but Frank was sitting close with his arm around the back of her chair, so she hadn’t been approached by anyone. The bar wasn’t as crowded as she had expected, which was good, but Hunter had been surrounded by a group of similarly looking rich douchey guys the whole time.

Frank tugged on a strand of her hair and leaned in close. “Look at the guy who just walked in,” he said into her ear in a low voice. She turned towards Frank and looked over his shoulder to the door, where there was an intimidating looking man with slicked back hair and a tattoo peeking out of his collar. He moved towards the bar, and as he ordered a drink, Frank tugged on her hair again and nudged her to look at Hunter. He knocked back the last of his beer and stood up, alone, and went up to the bar, sidling up right next to the new arrival.

Hunter and the man talked in low voices, nothing that Karen could hear over the noise of the crowd. She suddenly wished for Matt and his crazy super hearing, before quickly dismissing that thought. She and Frank watched the two drink their beers together. Hunter made no move to rejoin his friends, and once he and the other man had finished their drinks, they set them down on top of the bar and both moved towards the restrooms.

“Showtime,” Frank said.

She and Frank stood up and quickly followed, trying to look inconspicuous, his arm around her shoulders. The bathrooms were located at the end of a small hallway in the back, the women’s right across from the men’s. They reached the door, and, quietly listening for a few moments, Karen nodded, and Frank went inside.

Karen had just settled against the wall, trying to look like she was just waiting to use the women’s room, when Frank almost immediately came back out. If Karen didn’t know any better, she’d say he was surprised.

“What?” Karen asked, pushing off the wall. “What did you hear? Did you see anything?”

“Uhm,” Frank said, eloquently.

“ _Frank_ ,” Karen hissed. “You had _one_ job!”

“No, it’s…” Frank started. He blinked slowly, and sighed. He raised a finger to his lips, signaling Karen to keep quiet, and he ushered her into the men’s room.

And Hunter and the other guy were making out furiously against one of the stalls.

“Oh _shit_ ,” Karen blurted out before she could stop herself, and Frank slapped his palm against her mouth. It was only the four of them in there, and Hunter’s head popped up from its position buried in the other guy’s neck. His glazed over eyes focused on her and Frank, looking confused and annoyed at being interrupted.

“Uhm,” Karen said, also eloquently. “Sorry. Sorry! We’ll just….” she stammered, gesturing to the door, before Frank shoved her out into the hallway. They stared at each other.

“Well,” Frank started. “I don’t think he’s doing a drug deal right now.”

“Not unless there’s a bag of coke hidden inside that guy’s throat,” Karen said. Frank scrunched up his face. “But he could still be dealing here tonight, so…”

If Frank was more like Foggy, he would have whined and stamped his feet. As it was, Frank was a stoic badass, so he merely gave her an unimpressed look. “So we’re gonna stay.”

“Yep,” Karen sighed, and looped her arm through his as she steered them back to their table, stopping off at the bar for another round.

Twenty minutes of Frank laughing in Karen’s face as she grumpily drank her beer, angry at being close to seeing something like proof but instead seeing some sweaty foreplay (“We probably just interrupted his Grindr hookup,” Frank laughed, and Karen was even more disturbed that Frank knew what Grindr was), Hunter’s gentleman caller walked out of the bathroom and went back to the bar. Hunter followed shortly after, and he had to pass by Karen and Frank’s table to get back to the bar. As he walked past, Karen stood up.

“Hey, listen,” Karen started, and he jumped a little at her forwardness. “I’m so sorry about that, it’s just the line for the ladies’ was really long, and my friend said the men’s was empty.”

“Oh,” Hunter said, looking back and forth between her and Frank. He was actually a fairly attractive guy, if you ignored his atrocious clothes and his slight beer belly. He was in his thirties, and he had nice green eyes, and, well, billions of dollars. That probably attracted a few dates. Or quickies in public bathrooms. “That’s okay, really. It’s fine.”

“No, I feel awful. Here, can we buy you a drink?” Karen asked, gesturing to the bar. She noticed the other guy had already left.

Hunter seemed to notice too, and, sparing a glance at his group of friends, he sighed, and agreed.

It was surprisingly easy to get him to join her and Frank at their table once she bought him a beer, and they made their way back over to Frank, drinks in hand. Frank quickly raised his eyebrows at her, but didn’t say anything, and she was grateful he was going to follow along.

Hunter introduced himself as “Steve, and yeah, that was me on that stupid bachelors list,” shaking his head, a self-deprecating smile on his face. “I can’t fuckin’ believe I agreed to do that, but, well, it’s been great for my dating life,” he said, nodding in the direction of the bathroom.

“Right,” Karen said. “Has it affected your business ventures at all?”

“Business ventures?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t have any business ventures. I’m living off my old man’s money. My family has been in the oil business for generations. It’s gross, actually, the way we made our money. I hate being tied to the oil industry. That’s why I moved away from my family, up here.”

“Really?” Frank asked, leaning forward. “So you’re not going to take over the company some day?”

“No,” Hunter replied, shaking his head. “God, no. I haven’t told my father that, though – he’s on his deathbed, and it would kill him, and, well, I just want him to pass on still proud of me. He thinks I’m up here networking, making more connections for us. I’m hoping my cousin will take over instead of me.”

Frank nodded in reply, glancing over at Karen, a questioning look on his face.

“So what have you been doing up here? If you haven’t been networking, I mean,” Karen asked.

“What I’m doing tonight, mostly. My college buddies are over there,” he said, pointing to the group across the room. “And, well, like I said, I hate the fact that I live off of this dirty money, but I’m trying to do right. I’ve been making a lot of anonymous donations – I just made one to this no-kill animal shelter last week. I’m trying to do good with it, you know? I know it won’t cancel out all the bad shit my family members have done in the past, but, well. It’s something.”

“Yeah,” Karen said. “Yeah, it is something.” She sipped her beer.

“Well, listen,” Hunter said. “I should be getting over to my friends. Thanks for the beer. It was nice to meet you two.”

“Yeah, it was. Sorry again for the interruption, Steve,” Karen replied, and Hunter just smiled and waved her off.

“Don’t worry about it at all. Listen, I go to this restaurant in Greenwich all the time if you guys ever want to hang out. I love making new friends,” he said as he stood up, dropping a business card for the restaurant with the address on it. “And I’m totally in love with this one waiter there, so I always leave gigantic tips, and they love me. Just say my name and they’ll point you in my direction, if I’m there.”

Karen smiled up at him. “Thanks, Steve. Definitely. We’ll see you around.”

Hunter waved again and walked off to rejoin his friends.

Karen and Frank watched him go, and then they glanced at each other, and they burst out laughing.

“Oh my _fucking god_ ,” Karen said, leaning into Frank’s side. “I cannot _believe_ ,” she started again, but couldn’t keep talking, she was laughing so hard. Frank was doubled over, his head resting against the table and his eyes squeezed shut. Karen leaned her forehead against his shoulder, trying to stifle her giggles.

“I have never been so wrong about a person in my entire life,” Karen said, once they calmed down.

“He donates his oil money to animal shelters!” Frank practically guffawed, his face red. “He gives waiters giant tips! He loves making new friends! Page, how are you gonna show your face at the Bulletin now?”

“I don’t fucking know. He’s a hopeless romantic! What the fuck, oh my god, I’m such a dumbass, holy fuck,” she said, and Frank started laughing again. She leaned over and buried her face in his neck, hiding in shame.

He finally stopped laughing, and she peeked up at him. He was smiling down at her, completely, totally amused, for the first time since she met him. It was a good look.

“Alright, up,” he said, and stood up suddenly, pulling her with him.

“What? What are we doing?” she asked, as he pulled her towards the far end of the room to the dance floor.

“This is happening,” he said, giving her a twirl as they reached the crowd of couples.

“Are we _dancing_?” she asked, even as he grabbed one of her hands and put another around her waist.

“I’d be honored, ma’am.”

“Well, sir,” Karen said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “If you _insist_.”

There was some country song Karen didn’t recognize playing, but it was upbeat, and the couples around them were lively, happy. Frank clearly knew what he was doing, and the image of him, younger, taking dance classes for his wedding flashed briefly in her mind as they swung around. The image gave Karen’s heart a pang, as always happened when she thought of his former life, but she tried to dispel it, looking at his laughing face instead.

Tonight had been without a doubt one of the weirdest in Karen’s life, and Karen had a very weird life. She had had dates that ended in her being framed for murder, and she’s been kidnapped by ancient weirdo organizations aiming for immortality, but dancing to country music with The Punisher after the realization that a suspected drug lord was actually a closeted humanitarian took the number one spot in Weird Ass Things That Only Seem to Happen to Karen Page Because Her Life Sucks.

She thought that she should feel frustrated, or disappointed, or something, right now. After all, weeks of research had just been proved useless, and now she had a dead end and no idea who this actual Hunter person was. She had paid Jessica to follow this guy around for nothing. She had dragged Frank here for nothing. She would have to start all over again tomorrow, to try and find the actual person who was attempting to take over the Cartel’s former territory.

Instead, she just felt light.

Sure, the real guy was still out there, doing shitty things with shitty people. But this guy here, Steve Hunter, he wasn’t. And sure, almost every rich man she had ever met in her life was awful and tied up in some corrupt, dark bullshit. And she’d continue to believe that, but at least there was one rich person in the world who _wasn’t_ that. Who was trying to do some good. Who was trying to right some wrong, just like she was, just like Frank was.

Sometimes a rich guy was just a guy.

Suddenly, this wasn’t an investigation, and Karen wasn’t a journalist, Frank wasn’t her back up muscle. This was just a Friday night, and she was just at a bar, dancing with a guy.

“I can’t believe how good at this you are!” Karen said, laughing as Frank turned them in a circle. Frank grabbed both of her hands and swung her out before pulling her back to him, this time both his hands on her waist, hers on his shoulders. He dropped his head down to her shoulder and turned his face into her neck, and she could feel his grin.

Then his face was up again, and really close to hers, and if she leaned in a little more their foreheads would be touching, and then he was leaning in, and she was too, and then his mouth was on hers.

Karen was a dedicated servant to the truth, okay, so she wasn’t going to lie and say she had never thought about this, because she had. A lot. Not when they first met, and he was on his crazy murder spree and going to trial and desperately trying to find answers about his dead wife and children. But recently, she had allowed herself to think about Frank, and she thought about him _all the time_. His body on her couch as they drank coffee, the way his hands looked so sure around a gun, his face whenever he saw a dog, the way his bare shoulders might feel under her palm, his face whenever he saw _her_.

His mouth felt good as it moved against hers, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he pulled her closer by the hips. His hands felt good on her back. His shoulders felt good under her palms.

Their lips slid off each other, but he didn’t go far, and his face went back to her neck. He didn’t kiss her there, though, just breathed her in as they resumed moving to the music, albeit much slower this time.

She leaned up to reach his ear. “Frank, if we have to stay in this awful hick bar one more second, I’m gonna murder everyone wearing a cowboy hat.”

Frank laughed.

  

 

They made it back to Karen’s apartment easily – there were plenty of cabs outside the bar, and little traffic because of the late hour. They didn’t touch each other the whole ride back, or the walk up to the apartment, but they both couldn’t get over how mistaken Karen had been about their target tonight. Every few minutes they would start laughing again, bringing up something from the whole ridiculous situation – interrupting the guy’s drunken public bathroom hookup, the fact that he donated his money to save animals on death row and they thought he had been a drug dealer, his hideous shirt, Frank’s hideous shirt, everything about the mechanical bull setup.

“Did you see that girl who flew off after two seconds and then her boob popped out?” Karen said as she opened the door and threw her purse and keys on the coffee table, heading to the coffee pot in the kitchen.

“How could I miss that? Everyone started catcalling,” Frank said, collapsing on her couch. Karen kicked off her shoes before joining, slouching next to him as her coffee maker started brewing.

“It was a good day,” Karen said, after a minute of silence.

“Today I didn’t even have to use my AK,” Frank replied.

“Nice,” Karen said, and leaned over and kissed him.

Frank stilled, and Karen wondered, in the back of her mind, if Frank was even in a place where he would want to be kissing people who weren’t his dead wife. That probably would have been a good thing to ask before she started sucking his face, but, well, no turning back now. The thing at the bar could have been just an in the moment kind of thing, the both of them too happy and ridiculous to think about what they were doing. Frank was still for a few painstakingly long, awful moments before he sighed and leaned into her, his mouth moving against hers.

“Karen,” he said into her mouth, one of the few times he actually called her by her first name. For one horrible moment Karen thought he was going to say some bullshit like _do you know what you’re getting into?_ or _you’re too good for me, I’m only going to hurt you_ , but he only hummed into her mouth and said, “I think about you all the time.”

“That makes two of us,” she replied, and climbed into his lap, his hands moving on her back, messing up the fabric of her dress.

The scent of coffee slowly filled the apartment as it continued to brew, and it mingled nicely with Frank’s smell, a combination of the smoke from the bar and something she could only describe as masculine. She buried her hands in his hair, which had been getting longer, meaning he was going to appropriate her electric razor and buzz it off in a few days. It felt soft between her fingers, for now, and briefly Karen wondered if it would be curly if he grew it out long enough.

The coffee maker beeped quietly, which Frank seemed to take as some kind of signal, and he tightened his arm around her waist before standing up. Karen’s legs wrapped around him as he maneuvered them around, depositing her on the couch on her back. He quickly emptied his pockets, throwing his keys and wallet on the coffee table before covering her body with his own, his mouth hot on hers, his hips slowly moving. His lips moved to her jaw, her neck, trailing opened-mouth kisses, and she arched to give him more room.

Karen groaned as she arched up against him, trying to create some friction. Frank just huffed a quiet laugh before he started moving down her body, shucking up her dress and palming her ass. Karen hiked her dress up around her middle, and Frank’s mouth moved against her stomach, right above the line of her underwear, moving his hand from her ass to brush against her inner thigh.

His mouth went lower, wet and moving on the fabric right above where her clit was. Karen spread her legs wider, leaning back into the couch cushions, staring down at the top of his head. He continued to mouth at the fabric, occasionally moving left or right to nip at her thighs, before Karen huffed out “ _Jesus christ_ ” and reached down to shove his head aside and pull down her underwear all in one go. She felt the breath from his quiet laugh against her leg, and he pulled her underwear down the rest of the way, tossing them aside after they were completely off.

“Do you want…?” Frank started, glancing up at her.

“Has any girl _ever_ said no to that?” she replied, and his mouth was on her before she even finished the sentence.

Karen arched her back at the first feel of his tongue, her head pressing back into the armrest, her hips only remaining flat because of Frank’s hands. His mouth never left her clit, alternating between circling it with his tongue and sucking, first hard, then soft, then hard again. After a while one of his hands left her hip and his fingers pressed inside her, slowly, the rhythm matching his mouth and curling slightly in just the right way.

It didn’t take Karen very long. Like dancing, Frank obviously knew what he was doing, a skill he had acquired after a lot of practice. His mouth continued moving on her as her orgasm slowly washed over her entire body, and she shook under his hands. When she was finally done, she dropped her arm over her eyes, groaning.

There were a lot of things Karen thought about saying as she caught her breath, like _how are you so good at that_ or _I really like you_ or _I’m glad this is happening_ or _you have some of my come on your stupidly attractive nose_ or even _thank you_. She removed her arm from her eyes and, looking down at him and seeing him looking up at her, she settled on, “I can’t fucking believe you’re still wearing that hideous shirt.”

Frank laughed and, glancing down at the offending flannel, quickly ripped it off and tossed it aside to join her underwear. Karen made a good call with the snap buttons.

Frank leaned up and kissed her slowly, and when he pulled away, he moved back down her body and started on round two.

  

 

The next morning, Karen woke up with Frank’s arm around her middle and two texts from Jessica.

_“It can’t be that bad” –Barbie, yesterday, approximately 3:15pm_

_This is me laughing at you_

Karen stifled a laugh, and, glancing over at a snoring Frank, typed out her reply.

_Ok, it was awful, and you’re gonna hate me when I tell you what happened, but… it wasn’t the worst night ever_

She sent off the text, and, grinning, sent another message with just the eggplant emoji. Her phone buzzed with Jessica’s reply before Karen could even lock the screen.

_Page, you never cease to amaze me_

Karen chucked her phone back on the nightstand and, tucking herself back into Frank’s side, went back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> come cry with me at ultrakarenpage.tumblr.com


End file.
